14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier today Microsoft announced that it would fire a total of 18,000 employees over the next 12 months, but the company hasn't provided any specifics on who exactly is going to be affected by the layoff.
While Microsoft explained that every worker getting fired would be notified in the next half of year, a new report published by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reveals that all divisions within the company would actually be hit by the job cut, including Windows.
It appears that Microsoft is looking to get rid of some Windows engineers and testers, with sources referring to the number of layoffs as a “good chunk.” Remaining product managers and engineers will be given new responsibilities, but will also be asked to learn new skills in order to streamline the process of bringing new products to the market and reduce the time needed for such a thing to happen.
Microsoft's Sales and Marketing teams will also be impacted by the decision to fire workers, but again no exact figures are provided.
If everything goes well, Microsoft should become a company working more like what the source calls “lean startups,” with products such as Windows and the adjacent services to get significant updates at a faster pace than before.
Of course, it remains to be seen how the company will actually manage to cope with the losses, but this is only up to the leadership team to guide the firm to a new future.